I've been wondering when you would start to attack the scriptures themselves
It's not an attack on the Scriptures to defend their integrity. The fact is that the Johannine comma doesn't appear in any Greek manuscript of the first millennium.
As to the reasons for 1 John 5:7 (the "Johannine Comma"), there are three types of arguments for it. First is the theological argument; this is obvious based on the myriad other places the trinity is taught in scripture. As 1 John 5:7 is a clear summary of all those points, it is certainly not introducing any new doctrine nor providing anything but an easily understood summarization of many other points in the scripture.
The fact that it's "an easily understood summarization" actually argues in favor of it being a commentary on the original text. Commentaries seek to explain obscure or difficult-to-understand passages in a clear way. It's someone's interpretation of "Spirit, water, and blood" as being a reference to the Trinity.
Also note that a forger (the RCC and textual critics' suppositional source of 1 John 5:7)
It's not a forger, it's an honest mistake. Someone wrote a comment in the margin. And, later on, someone else who was copying the manuscript assumed that the comment in the margin was meant as an attempt to correct a previous scribe's mistake, and so he inserted the comment into the text of his own copy of the Bible. There's no need to suppose malice on anyone's part here.
would have been far more likely to use "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" rather than "Father, Word, and Holy Spirit".
There's no difference between "Holy Ghost" and "Holy Spirit" in Latin. These are two English translations of "Spiritus Sanctus".
The second argument is grammatical. Note that in 1 John 5:8 which in the RCC manuscripts (Aleph, B, etc.) still mentions "spirit, water, and blood". Yet those are all neuter nouns, but are treated in verse 8 as masculine. If you omit the Johannine Comma, it's grammatically unbalanced. Yet leaving it in works very well; the masculine nouns "Father" and "Word" in verse 7 control the gender in the succeeding verse due to what's called the "attraction principle".
The irregular agreement of the masculine here with three neuter antecedents Dabney termed "an insuperable and very bald grammatical difficulty." Irregular gender agreement, however, is never a "very bald grammatical difficulty" in Greek. It may be seen, for example, in I Cor. 13:13, where the antecedents, "faith, hope, and love" (feminine genders) are followed immediately by "these three" (neuter, "tauta"). Matt. 23:23 proves the point further, that "judgment (feminine), mercy (masculine), and faith" (feminine) are the implied antecedents of the demonstrative pronoun "these (neuter) ought ye to have done."
Any "known rule of syntax" about "the masculines among the group" that "control the gender over a neuter connected with them" is completely irrelevant here. In v. 6, the "Spirit" has been introduced as the witness bearer, and John in his Gospel narrative uses the masculine ekeinos ("he") to refer to the neuter, "Spirit" in John 16:13. There is no reason why John would not use a masculine participle here where the third Person of the Godhead was "connected" with the two other neuters in I John 5:8. Dabney, here, thus destroys his own argument by correctly stating that "pneuma" (Spirit) is "the leading noun of this second group" in v. 8--that being the case, John would certainly ascribe a masculine gender to the entire "group" since he has already been known to ascribe a masculine gender to the Holy Spirit in John 16:13.
It is also mentioned by Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, and Jerome.
These are all Latin writers. Since we're discussing whether the Johannine comma appeared in Greek manuscripts, I fai
I want proof of your assertion that Popes ordered Crusaders to kill Jews they found along the way. Either provide the evidence for this, or apologize.
Splitting hairs about past participles or past tense is missing the point; the point is the act has been completed, whether illustrated by a verb or a participle or a gerundive. The point is that Christ has been crucified, the heinous, awful, terrible act has been completed for a long time.
The point is that Paul says that we Christians preach the crucified Christ (1 Corinthians 1:23), Christ in the state of crucifixion. It is precisely Christ on the cross that Paul is talking about here - it is the very fact that Christ was crucified that the Jews find to be a stumbling block, since the Messiah was supposed to be a great king, and not executed like a criminal.
We shouldn't be ashamed that Christ died for us; rather, we should glory in this:
Galatians 6:14
But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
Here Paul emphasizes Christ on the cross:
1 Corinthians 2:2
For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
Christ's death on the cross is what shows us how much God loves us:
John 15:13
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
1 John 4:9-11 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
In fact, Jesus told us to commemorate His crucifixion in the Eucharist:
1 Corinthians 11:24,26
"Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me."... For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.
Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth: And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven. (Deu 4:15-19)
What this forbids is the making of images for the sake of worshipping them, and not the making of images as such. God Himself ordered images to be made:
Exodus 25:18-22
And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat. And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof. And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be. And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimon
Your claim that Mary was planning not to "know" Joseph is extremely weak, particularly in light of Matthew 1:23, Matthew 12, Matthew 13, Mark 3, Mark 6, Luke 8, and Galatians 1.
What you have to understand is that all of the Bible is true, not just the parts that you can fit into what you believe. All those verses you mentioned can easily be understood in a way that agrees with what Luke 1:34 tells us (that Mary never intended to have sex). For instance, the Bible uses the word "brother" to refer to many close family relationships, so the verses you cited using the word "brother" do not contradict the fact that Mary remained a virgin all of her life. On the other hand, there's no way to make Luke 1:34 agree with your interpretation of those verses you mentioned. Therefore, your interpretation of these passages is incorrect.
in claiming that all those passages are incorrect,
Those passages are not incorrect, it is your interpretation of them that is incorrect. There is a difference.
And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.(Luk 1:28-29)
Here Mary is "troubled" at the angel saluting her as "highly favoured" and "blessed... among women". If she were sinless, she would know that she were; and she would be aware that would make her uniquely blessed and favoured.
As I said in the other thread, holy people are humble, and don't think of themselves as holy.
And from Daniel 9 she could have worked out (as Anna and Simeon did, see Luke 2:25-6 and 2:36-38) that the time was right for the birth of Messiah to a virgin, something she would be uniquely qualified for, being sinless.
I'm happy to see that you agree that being sinless would make one uniquely qualified to be the mother of the Messiah.
Yet she was surprised and had to be told "Fear not, Mary". Why would she be afraid of something she knew was inevitable?
You seem to assume that she would automatically know everything that was about to be told to her, but I don't see why that would be the case. As I said in the other thread, the meaning of prophecies isn't always clear until after they come true. Besides, I think a little fear is understandable under the circumstances.
Why would she have to be told that she "hast found favour with God"?
Why did Jesus have to be told "Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." (Luke 3:22)?
In Luke 11:28 the comparative "rather" is clear; in response to "Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked", He answered "But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it".
He says "yea rather", not "nay rather". He's not saying His mother isn't blessed.
The point of what He's saying here is that if you had a choice between being His mother (and not hearing the word of God and keeping it) and hearing the word of God and keeping it (but not being His mother), you'd be better off in the second category. But He's not at all denying that His mother is blessed, since she does hear the word of God and keep it; moreover, the Bible tells us elsewhere that Mary is blessed.
Believers are not sinless, yet the RCC claims Mary was
Believers are sometimes sinless, such as after their baptism or confession.
Praying to Mary you claim is the same as asking any other Christian to pray for us. That would have been true when she was here, but not now. She is dead now, and contact with the dead by us is forbidden throughout scripture.
We aren't forbidden to talk to the dead (for instance, think of Jesus at the Transfiguration); rather, we are forbidden to try (through magical means) to get the dead to talk to us, in an atte
You point out that the doctrine of the trinity was not "official" until 325, yet there is a very explicit verse which shows it
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. (1 John 5:7)
This isn't part of the original Biblical text. The oldest Greek manuscripts that include it are from around 1200 AD or so. This started out as a comment written in the margins of the Bible that eventually got incorporated into the text of some manuscripts.
So where is the equally explicit verse or verses showing the sinlessness and assumption of Mary? Where is the equally explicit verse showing prayers to the dead?
Well, as I've asked many times, where in the Bible does it say that all Christian teachings are to be found in the Bible?
In any case, as far as Biblical allusions are concerned, I've already addressed the sinlessness question. With regard to the assumption, since the Ark is a type of Mary, the following could refer to her assumption:
Psalm 132:8 Arise, O LORD, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength.
Concerning asking the saints for prayers, there are various verses in which Christians are asked to pray for others. We are all members of the Body of Christ, and death doesn't change that. The saints in heaven would pray for us, their brothers in Christ, just as readily as we do, or even more so.
The spirituality of the catacombs is moreover "social". The Christian, who is accustomed to say in prayer not "my Father" but "our Father", knows that in God's family one does not live separately, but socially. "Though many in number, we form one body in Christ" (Rom 12,59)...
Hundreds of pilgrims, buried in the Memoria of the ancient Appian Way (the Catacombs of St. Sebastian), invoke Peter and Paul, by scratching short prayers on the plaster of the triclia (hall for funeral banquets, in the open air): "Paul and Peter, pray for Victor - Paul, Peter, pray for Sozomenon".
At the entrance of the Crypt of the Popes in St. Callixtus, the wall is covered with prayers: "O St. Sixtus, remember in your prayers Aurelius Repentinus".
You want proof of the slaughters ordered by the popes,
No, I want proof of your assertion that Pope Innocent III ordered the slaughter at Beziers. Either provide it or apologize.
are you a priest or monk; or which are you training for?
Thanks for the compliment, but I'm just a layman.
Anyway, this book gives all the documentation of atrocities by popes you asked for.
That book contains many errors. See, for instance, this page and this one.
You claim the Ark of the Covenant is a type of Mary.
Yes, she bore Christ, just as the Ark bore the three types of Christ.
For example, the tables of the law are in the Ark. Mary did not bear the law, but Christ did fulfill the law.
Christ is the Word, just as the Law is the Word of God. So the tables are a type of Christ. The Ark bore the tables, just as Mary bore Christ.
There is a pot of manna in the Ark; Mary did not contain food for all, but Christ is the bread of life (John 6:33-51).
Yes, Christ is the bread of life, and so the manna is a type of Christ. Mary bore Christ, just as the Ark bore the manna.
There is a budded rod of Aaron in the Ark; Mary did not contain a rod, but Christ is the anointed high priest, which is what the rod was about (also see Isaiah 11:1).
I said no one anywhere in the Bible calls Mary sinless, or without fault.
Perhaps not explicitly, but there are lots of possible indirect allusions to this.
First, I've already talked about the word "kecharitomene", which states that Mary was embued with grace in a special way.
Second, there's the prophecy in Genesis 3:15, which states that there is a special enmity between Satan and the mother of the Messiah. Enmity with Satan implies lack of sin.
Third, the Ark of the Covenant can be seen as a type of Mary. The Ark contained within it types of Christ, just as Mary had Christ within herself. The Ark was specially constructed from materials known for their incorruptibility (gold and shittim wood). Thus, Mary was also specially made for her role: she was given the grace to be preserved from the corruption of sin.
Fourth, Christ is the second Adam. The prophecy of Genesis 3:15 points to Mary as the New Eve. Eve said yes to Satan and brought sin into the world, while Mary said yes to God and brought salvation into the world. Adam, Eve, and Christ were all created or conceived without sin, and the same would be true of Mary.
For a doctrinal point to be made, surely the Holy Spirit would have inspired an author to make that less obvious point more clear than the point that Jesus was without sin, which is obvious since He is also God.
Where does the Bible say that all doctrines must be clearly stated in the Bible?
Indeed even the RCC did not declare her sinless until 1854 (by Pius IX).
So what? The doctrine of the Trinity wasn't defined until 325 AD. That doesn't mean that it wasn't believed before then.
Why did centuries of "infallible" popes get it wrong then?
I'm not aware that they did. But I think you misunderstand what papal infallibility is about. The following is from the Council of Vatican I:
When the Roman pontiff speaks "ex cathedra" - that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church - he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.
Ludwig Ott, in his book "Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma" (p. 287), describes the conditions for infallibility:
For this is required:
(a) that he speak as pastor and teacher of all the faithful with the full weight of his supreme apostolic authority; if he speaks as a private theologian or as the bishop of his Diocese, he is not infallible;
(b) That he have the intention of deciding finally a teaching of faith or morals, so that it is to be held by all the faithful. Without this intention, which nust be made clear in the formulation, or by the circumstances, a decision ex cathedra is not complete. Most of the doctrinal expressions made by the Popes in their Encyclicals are not decisions ex cathedra.
Innocent III said "she was produced in sin, but she brought forth without sin [De festo Assump., sermon 2]".
It doesn't say "she was produced with sin", but "in sin". The "sin" or lack thereof applies to the parents, not to the children.
Also isn't the RCC interpretation of Revelation 12:2 is Mary giving birth? If so, then since she is travailing in birth, she is subject to the curse of painful childbirth given to sinners in Genesis 3.
Well, to my knowledge there's no official interpretation of that passage, but the Woman in Revelation 12 can be seen as the Jewish people of the Old Testament, the Church of the New Testament, and Mary. The various details found in that chapter can apply partly to each of the three. Mary was, indeed, the Mother of Christ. But the birth pangs there refer to the people
You claim you don't worship Mary, yet you say prayers to her. Show me in the Bible where ANYONE except God was prayed to. And no that does not me "I pray you let me have some food", that is a figure of speech. The challenge is an actual prayer said to some entity other than God which is not an illustration of idolatry or heresy.
Psalm 103:20-21
Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word! Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will!
You again issue the "produce the documents" challenge about the slaughter ordered by the popes; again, these are historically proven facts,
Crusaders did "slaughter Jews along the way", as you described it, but this was not ordered by any Pope. So what you've done here is bear false witness against your neighbors (the Popes).
if you wish to dispute them, then the burden of proof is on you to provide contrary evidence.
That's not the way it works. If you make an accusation against someone, then it's up to you to provide evidence to back up your accusation.
Your citation of 1 Cor 1:23 is a good one, but note that the word "crucified" is in the PAST TENSE. It therefore means that He was crucified, that heinous act is complete.
No, it's not a past tense there. The word "crucified" here is a past participle, and it's acting as a participial adjective describing Christ.
So "we preach Christ crucified" means "we preach the crucified Christ." This is precisely what the image of Christ on the cross does, it "preaches" that Christ died for our sins.
Yet the RCC shows Him at the moment of what Satan thought was his triumphant victory, having killed the Son of God.
So, in other words, you disagree with the Bible when it says "We preach Christ crucified."
An empty cross as protestants use is more accurate, He is no longer there.
Maybe an empty cross shows that you don't believe that Christ was ever crucified... Or that you, like Satan, wish that Christ had never been crucified.
I wasn't being serious, I was merely imitating what you did above. Perhaps now you can see that the way you cast the worst possible light on everything isn't very reasonable.
Back to the claim that the RCC does not worship Mary. Uh-huh. Jesus clearly told us to pray to God the Father, note the disciples' prayer in Matthew 6 and Luke 11. He never said "pray to my Mom"
Jesus also never said to pray to Himself, or to the Holy Spirit. Does that mean it's wrong for us to do so?
He never said "gee that's a tough one, better see my Mom about that one".
Actually, that's precisely what He does at the wedding at Cana. The people there had a problem, but He was unwilling to help them. He waited until His mother intervened on their behalf before He actually did anything to help them.
Yet the RCC prays to Mary, note the Rosary's conclusion: "Hail, holy Queen [of heaven], Mother of Mercy! Our life, our sweetness, and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping, in this valley of tears.".
Let's have a look at this:
Hail, holy Queen [of heaven]
Why did you add that last part? To make it look worse in your own eyes? In any case, in accordance with Biblical usage, Mary is a Queen because her son is a King, as I've already explained.
Mother of Mercy
Mercy=Jesus
Our life, our sweetness, and our hope!
This refers to the idea that Mary prays to God and asks Him to give us His grace. So Mary is our life and hope in the sense that we receive grace through her prayers, and grace gives us spiritual life. The implication here is that without Mary's prayers, we would not get as much grace; so for some of us, Mary's prayers might mean the difference between salvati
the point about "I know not a man" only says that at that point in time she was a virgin; we all agree on that. Nothing in that sentence says "I will never know a man". Had the intent of the Holy Spirit been to tell us that she was to remain a virgin, He could have communicated that point by changing the tense of the verb there. But instead the plain, simple, clear, direct reading of that is that at that point in time, she was a virgin.
The problem is that, if she were planning to have sex, then what she says doesn't make sense. She clearly understands that women get pregnant by "knowing" men, and yet she, a betrothed woman, expresses that she doesn't know how it is possible for her to get pregnant... If she were planning to have a normal marriage, then she would soon "know" Joseph. But her reply to the angel indicates that she wasn't planning to do so.
When Jesus said "rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it" He clearly communicated that Mary was not blessed above the status of any believer who is faithful.
Where does He say that? Does everyone have exactly the same level of faithfulness? Someone who is better at hearing the word of God and keeping it is more blessed than someone else who is less good at that.
Besides, Mary's blessedness has already been established Luke 1. Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, says that Mary is blessed among women, so clearly she's very blessed. Also, Elizabeth says in Luke 1:43 that it's an honor for her to be visited by the mother of her Lord. And in verse 44, John the Baptist leapt in the womb for joy when he heard Mary's voice.
For the RCC to exalt her to the point of praying to her is a clearly extrabiblical doctrine.
Asking Mary to pray for you is no different than asking another Christian to pray for you. If Christians on earth pray for others, then how much more do the Christians in heaven do so. But I'll have more to say on this in the other thread.
You claim with Mary again that her statement of "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" only makes sense for you to argue if one assumes that you don't understand Jewish marriages of the time. They went in four stages
I fail to see what difference this makes. No matter how many stages there were, eventually the normal course of things was for the couple to have sex. Clearly Mary wasn't planning to do so. I'll go into more detail in the other thread.
And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it. (Luk 11:27-28)
Here Jesus Christ says that more blessed than His mother are those who hear or understand the Word of God, and keep or obey it. Mary was certainly not considered blessed by Him.
Where does it say that He didn't consider her blessed? Mary is someone who hears the word of God and keeps it, so He's calling her blessed too.
Mark 10:18
And Jesus said unto him, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God."
Is Jesus denying here that He is good? Is He denying that He is God?
You claim that both muslims and Jews see God incorrectly, implying they are equally in error.
No, I obviously did not imply they are equally in error. But the Jews clearly have a false idea of God.
And no, God is not calling me to be a member of a pagan-derived, nicolaitan church whose head kisses the Koran and who worships Mary and has idols galore and who portrays Satan's transitory moment of triumph by using crucifixes instead of the empty cross.
Hmmm, lots of little attacks here. No, we're not pagan-derived, we don't worship Mary, we don't have idols, etc.
The Nicolaitans were a sect based on unrestrained indulgence. I don't see how this has anything to do with Catholicism.
As for depicting Christ on the cross, why do you have a problem with that? "We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness." (1 Corinthians 1:23) It is through His death on the cross that we can be saved. An empty cross doesn't necessarily represent a resurrected Christ - after all, the cross was empty right after He was taken down from it, and He was dead then. A cross with Christ on it, on the other hand, is a visual reminder of the fact that He loved us enough to give up His life for us, and thus obtain for us salvation.
Anyway, let's look at things objectively. The Church in the Bible is described as having certain sacraments. The Catholic Church has them. Does your church? Here are two I've already mentioned:
The confession of sins:
John 20:22-23
And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained."
The Eucharist, which is the Body and Blood of Christ:
Mark 14:22-24
And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.
1 Corinthians 11:26-29 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
Finally, the Bible tells us that God gave Peter the grace to protect the faith of the other Christians. (Luke 22:31-32) Now, this makes complete sense to Catholics in light of the Papacy. How does your religion explain the fact that Jesus prayed only for Peter, and not for the other Christians also? That is, how do you explain the fact that God chose to use one man, Peter, as the means through which to protect the faith of His Church?
Okay, now we get to your explanations of the anti-Once-Saved-Always-Saved verses:
Philippians 3:11-14, you did not include verses 9 and 10:
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
(Phi 3:9-10)
Clearly Paul is saying here that he has no inherent righteousness through any behavior or works, rather the only righteousness he has is from faith in Christ. He then, in the verses you extracted, states that he is always seeking improvement. However put in more full context, this makes the point against any of our works having anything to do with righteousness, since the only righteousness we
You correctly point out that Jesus was baptized only because it was to fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:15). But note the verse before that, Jesus is challenged, to the point that John the Baptist "forbad him" (Matthew 3:14), since it was clear that Jesus was without sin.
Right. So we see from this that receiving something that is meant for sinners does not mean that the recipient is a sinner.
Yet no one, anywhere in the Bible, calls Mary sinless or without fault.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that all truth is found in the Bible.
In fact she knows she needs a Saviour, as she cites in the magnificat.
She doesn't say she needs a Savior, she says she has a Savior.
Luke 1:47 "And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."
You citations of the OT all have one common element: whoever was applying the sacrifices, and the person (not thing) on whose behalf the sacrifice was made, were all sinners.
What you are ignoring is that, in all the cases I cited, what was being cleansed was ceremonial impurity, not sin. Also, in one case, a sin offering was used to cleanse an altar, which cannot be tainted with sin. Thus, the use of a sin offering does not imply sin in the one cleansed.
You maintain Mary was sinless. Since after the Fall no one was sinless,
After the Fall, two people were sinless: Jesus and His mother Mary. Jesus is sinless because He is God, and Mary because God gave her the grace to be sinless.
Note also that no one told her not to make a sin offering, or to offer only one of the turtledoves and not the one for the sin offering.
As I said, it was the Law. Why would anyone suggest to her that she break the Law?
Making a sin offering when there is no sin would be denying God's power to have created her without sin; that would be blasphemy and a sin.
No, not at all. And, as I've already shown, a sin offering does not imply the presence of sin in the one cleansed.
Does the fact that Jesus received a baptism of repentance when He had nothing to repent mean that He denied His own sinlessness, and therefore sinned?
Go to Beziers, France some day - they have a tourist industry built up around the slaughter that happened there one afternoon on the pope's orders.
The Pope never ordered this. Either produce the document in which he did order this, or apologize.
Hi, I'm another anonymous coward besides the one you've been conversing with, but I have a quesiton..
Hi there.
these have been interesting conversations to read. I have this question pressing on my mind. The Bible nowhere indicates the lofty position that the RCC places Mary in.
There's lots of different reasons for our view of Mary. For instance, concerning the efficacy of her prayers for us: have a look at the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-10). Jesus was not going to help the people there with their wine problem, because His time had not yet come. And yet, despite this, Mary was able to get Jesus to help them...
Have a look at this page for more background on this.
Justification by grace through faith, and not by works, is taught with amazing clarity in the Bible, hundreds of verses can be found to prove this position beyond question. Yet, I fail to have seen a single verse that would make us think that Mary was anything other than a normal woman, blessed by God to be the mother of our Messiah.
There isn't any Biblical verse that clearly states that God is a Trinity, but we believe it nonetheless.
I have to say, that I find it an amazing stretch based on extra-biblical opinions to say that Mary did not have further children:
First of all, it's not a matter of "opinion" at all, but of historical fact. The Bible isn't a book of fiction; it tells us about things that actually happened in the real world. The early Christians knew very well that Mary had no other children, and they didn't need the Bible to tell them this.
Second, where does the Bible say that it contains all truth?
But, as it turns out, the Bible does tell us that Mary and Joseph were not planning to ever have sex. We can see this from the first chapter of Luke.
Luke 1:30-33
And the angel said unto her, "Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."
If Mary intended to have a normal marriage, including sexual intercourse, one would have expected her to react in the following manner: "How wonderful! Joseph and I will be the parents of the Messiah!" But instead, what she said is:
Luke 1:34
How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
If Mary had intended to have sexual intercourse with Joseph, what she says here makes no sense at all. Thus, she intended to remain a virgin even in marriage.
"Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit...'"
How does the fact that Joseph thought Mary was a loose woman imply that he will eventually have sex with her?
It would be no wife if he could not do that which God put in us.
Among the Jews in that time, people were already considered husband and wife while they were engaged (i.e. before they even had sex with each other). So in Mary and Joseph's case, it would merely be a life-long extension of that state. It is not the most common form of marriage, of course, but it's not completely unknown. Gandhi, for instance, lived with his wife without sex for the last several decades of their married life.
The disciples when Jesus told them that they shouldn't divorce said it is better then that a man not get married. Jesus said that it
I realize you are not going to listen to why Once Saved, Always Saved is the true reading of Scripture based on our discussions here.
Well, maybe it would help if you actually offered me some sort of argument in defense of your position.
Here are the verses I sent you. Please respond to each one individually, showing me how they agree with your doctrine of "Once Saved, Always Saved".
Philippians 3:11-14
If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
1 Corinthians 9:27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
1 Corinthians 10:12 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
Romans 11:22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Galatians 6:9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
Hebrews 3:12-14 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end.
James 1:12,15-16 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.... Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren.
And then you claim that
Muslims intend to worship the same God as we do (I believe their explicit intention is to worship the God of Abraham)
Amazing. Just amazing. Muslims believe their allah is a vengeful, arbitrary, and capricious god, and that only by killing infidels can they be guaranteed heaven.
Indeed, the Muslims are very wrong in how they see God, but then again so are the Jews. God is actually a Trinity, and neither the Muslims nor the Jews acknowledge this. Anyway, my point was that the intention of the Muslims is to worship the same God as we do. God calls them to worship Him, but they are ignorant of some of the truth, and so they respond to His grace in the best way they know how.
God calls everyone to become members of His Church, the Catholic Church. You presumably don't realize this yet. Assuming that you act in good faith, and are actually trying to seek the truth and do what He wants you to do, then you can be saved despite not formally being a Catholic, since God understands that you have limitations due to your upbringing, etc. However, once you realize that God wants you to join the Church, then you must do so, since that is what you now know God wants you to do for your salvation.
Your assert that "Mary was conceived without sin, through the grace of God. Thus, she was saved from sin. Without God's intervention, she would have been in a state of sin, but God saved her from ever being in that state."
Our Lord Jesus Christ was of course born without sin as he was the seed of the woman, and did not inherit Adam's sin nature.
Jesus was born without sin because He is God. It has nothing to do with His being the seed of a woman. On the other hand, the entire universe was affected by Adam's fall, and yet the universe isn't descended from Adam:
Romans 8:20-22 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
You (and the RCC which you defend so vigorously) state that Mary was also born without sin, but from the seed of Adam. Yet if that were true, then there is a way for Adam's race to be born without sin;
Yes, through the grace of God. Mary was saved just like anyone else: through God's grace. The only difference between Mary and the rest of us with regard to being saved is that Mary was saved at her conception, and while the rest of us are saved later on.
then Jesus died for nothing, according to the RCC interpretations.
It is only because Jesus died that Mary could be saved, whether at her conception or at any other time. Without Christ's sacrifice, Mary (and everyone else) would die in a state of sin and be damned.
In the gospels, he asks, as in Matthew 26:39
O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt
He asked the Father that if there were any other way to redeem Adam's race, that the cup (of having all of your sin, my sin, the world's sin put upon Him) pass from Him. Yet, according to God's holy word, there was no other way, Jesus had to die for our sins.
Exactly. Thus, Mary was saved through Christ's sacrifice.
And by the definitions of John in his epistles, that [being anti-Biblical] is equated to anti-Christ.
Being anti-Biblical is certainly not a good thing. But what you say here about John's definitions of the Antichrist isn't true. John describes the Antichrist as someone who denies that Jesus is the Messiah or that Christ has a human nature:
1 John 2:22-23 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.
1 John 4:3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist...
2 John 1:7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
You then claim that the word (Strong's 5487) translated "thou that art highly favoured" means "full of grace". Yet even Thayer's lexicon says it's:
to make graceful i.e. charming, lovely, agreeable
What makes us agreeable to God is grace.
The definition you offered above is Thayer's first definition of "charitoo". The second definition offers another possible translation of the word as it is used in Lk. 1:28: "endued with grace".
And look at the other use of the word, in Ephesians 1:6
To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
That context surely does not carry the meaning you and the RCC are trying to force upon the humble "handmaid of the Lord" Mary.
As you say, the context is different. But both cases refer to a giving of grace by God.
A formal excommunication is not meant to be used for "politically correct" purposes, to distance oneself from someone we find distasteful. It is meant as a warning to Christians who have left the faith, in the hope that they will reconsider and return to the Church (like the sentiment expressed in 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15). This presupposes that the person in question would have some interest in belonging to the Church in the first place. Hitler and Mussolini had no interest in belonging to the Church (they were, in fact, enemies of the Church for quite a long time). They weren't even Christians. So a formal excommunication would be pointless.
Thank you Pall, you have made my point for me. The Roman Catholic Church teaches, as you have just ably illustrated, that believers are in perpetual jeopardy of losing salvation, unless they perform properly.
No, what I have illustrated is that the Bible teaches this. Why don't you accept what the Bible teaches?
This is best summarized as "works salvation".
No, works salvation means that one can be saved through our own efforts. This is false. We actually gain salvation only through the free gift of God's grace. What I'm talking about (losing salvation) can happen only after we have already received the grace of salvation. It is a rejection of the gift God has given us.
Did Adam work for his salvation? No, he was created "saved" as a gift from God. But did Adam reject God's gift? Yes, he sinned and thus lost his salvation.
Biblical Christianity, in direct contrast to the RCC and many Protestant denominations, teaches eternal security. We can screw up (who doesn't?) and lose some rewards, and get chastised; but once saved, always saved.
In that case, please show me the correct way to interpret all those verses I sent you. The last explanation you gave me didn't apply to any of them.
See we Biblical Christians believe the simple, direct teaching of our Lord, as in John 10:25-29
Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
Here Jesus clearly states that he will give believers eternal life, and that we shall never perish and that we cannot be plucked out of His Father's hand.
He gives us eternal life, and we can live our eternal life in heaven if we persevere in His grace to the end. We cannot be plucked out of God's hand by anyone else, but we can freely decide to leave God's hand. God respects our free will.
As for the idea that works are required for salvation, as you have so convincingly shown the Roman Catholic Church teaches
I have not shown this, nor does the Catholic Church teach it.
Read Ephesians 2, not a verse out of context, but an entire chapter:
I agree with all of that.
Anyone who has accepted the free gift of Jesus is of the household of God; He does not throw us out of the house for being what we are, inherently sinful.
First, He does not throw us out, we leave of our own free will. And if we repent, we can return to Him. Second, once we are saved, we are not doomed to sin whether we like it or not. We do have concupiscence and temptations to deal with, but God gives us sufficient grace to overcome them and avoid sin. If we sin, we have only ourselves to blame. It is not inevitable that we will sin, and to say otherwise is to deny the sufficiency of God's grace.
I am indeed quite grateful for the good works of the RCC, but if you're going to cite them, you have to accept the bad as well.
I find it somewhat amusing to hear this coming from you. Did you cite any good along with the bad? In any case, as I pointed out, the fruits that the Bible are talking about are those that flow from erroneous doctrines, and not from the sins of individuals who decide to ignore correct doctrine.
And saying that Poland was the cause of the collapse of the USSR is a bit off base, even Gorby says it was the financial ruin they were facing as Reagan was getting SDI going. Socialism can't outperform Capitalism, and that's what failed them. Of course open information (through faxes and laser print
Mary was saved at her conception, but she was saved nonetheless.
Saved from what? Unless she was a sinner, she didn't need a Saviour. Yet she clearly knew when she called God her Saviour that she needed one, hence she knew she had sinned (Luke 1:47).
Ever since the Original Sin, the general rule is that we begin life in the fallen state: we are in a state of sin from the moment of our conception, and we can be saved later on in our life through God's grace. On the other hand, just as Adam and Eve were created without sin, Mary was conceived without sin, through the grace of God. Thus, she was saved from sin. Without God's intervention, she would have been in a state of sin, but God saved her from ever being in that state.
Thus the example I gave: Let's imagine that you fell into a pit (out of which it is impossible for you to climb on your own), and I pulled you out. It could then be said that I had saved you from the pit. Now, let's imagine that you were about to fall into the very same pit, but this time I stopped you from actually falling in. Have I not saved you from the pit in this case as well? In either case, without my help, you'd still be in the pit. So even if Mary was saved at her conception, rather than later on, she was still saved through Jesus.
And while we're on that topic, in Luke 1:28 Mary is called "blessed art thou among women" which the RCC uses to raise Mary above all humanity.
Actually, it was God who chose her as His Mother, not us. But the word "blessed" here is not the only Biblical word to look at. For instance, also in Luke 1:28: "And the angel came in unto her, and said, 'Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.'"
What the KJV translates as "thou that art highly favoured" is, in the original Greek, only one word, a title given to Mary by the angel: "kecharitomene". It is better translated as "full of grace". Charis means grace, the verb "charitoo" means "to embue with grace". In any case, since the giving of a title or a name in the Bible tends to mean that the title represents something significant or special about that person, the title "kecharitomene" means that Mary has been especially embued with grace. We take this to mean that she has been completely filled with grace at her conception, and thus freed from sin, in preparation for her role as the mother of Christ.
There are also other Biblical reasons for this, such as the Biblical comparisons of Mary with the Ark of the Covenant.
Yet the word "blessed" there is the same word (Strongs 2127) as in Galatians 3:9 "So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." So Mary is told she is blessed with the same word as any believer is told they are. Not like the RCC says.
Actually, Christ is also said to be "blessed" using the very same word:
Luke 1:41-42 Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: and she spake out with a loud voice, and said, "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb."
So you're saying that Christ is only as blessed as any believer? Or would you agree that the same word can express different amounts of blessedness?
And in Judges 5:24 "Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be". Note that Jael is not blessed "among" but "above" women. So she should outrank Mary. Yet the RCC has, to all appearances, pretty much ignored Jael.
Jael is an Old Testament type of Mary. She prefigures Mary: both do their part to fight the enemy (a different enemy in each case though). By the way, the expression "blessed among" means the same as "blessed above" in Hebrew idiom.
You repeatedly claim that the women on the beast is the city of Jerusalem riding on Rome. Yet Revelation 17:18 disproves that: "And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth."
The verses you asked for comment on simply teach that we must be wary in our Christian walk, that we can slide into sin. Doing so by no means loses our salvation, but God's chastisement of us when we're in sin, well, hurts. Getting taken to the woodshed is necessary to teach us the lesson, and after it we are closer to God, but the process is not fun.
Okay, let's take a look at them one by one, and see if they can be interpreted in this way.
Philippians 3:11-14
If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Here he's talking about whether or not he will "attain unto the resurrection of the dead". So your interpretation doesn't fit.
1 Corinthians 9:27
But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
Here he's talking about whether or not he will be a "castaway", rejected by God. So your interpretation doesn't fit.
1 Corinthians 10:12
Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
Have a look at what comes before this.
1 Corinthians 10:1-6 Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. ["Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness." (Numbers 14:16)] Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
So these things are an example for us, showing that those who are saved can spiritually die; just as the Israelites sinned and thus died. They had been saved from slavery, and were supposed to go to the Promised Land, but they didn't because they had sinned.
1 Corinthians 10:7-11 Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
These are more examples for us, showing that sin results in spiritual death. So now we have finally come to the verse I had quoted earlier: "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Paul's whole point here is that we can lose our salvation if we sin. This danger is always there, which is why we must "take heed" lest we fall.
Romans 11:22
Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
Here is the context of the above verse:
Romans 11:16-24 If the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, w
Yet again, you're doing the "argument from silence" tactic to interpreting the Scriptures.
No, not at all. It is you who is arguing from silence. I'm saying that Paul believes that he's saved, which is what the text says. You, on the other hand, are adding the idea that Paul supposedly believes that he will continue to be saved until he dies. Nowhere does Paul say this. Not only that, but Paul has often said the opposite, that we can lose our salvation.
Here are some verses on this topic that I've already sent you. I'd like to see your response to them:
Philippians 3:11-14
If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
1 Corinthians 9:27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
1 Corinthians 10:12 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
Romans 11:22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Galatians 6:9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
Hebrews 3:12-14 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end.
James 1:12,15-16 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.... Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren.
The same flaw exists in your discussion about Jesus's departure in Acts 1. While the angels do say He will return in the same way, that certainly does not preclude Him coming as 1 Thessalonians says He will.
Acts 1 and 1 Thes. 4 are clearly describing the same event. There's only one Second Coming of Jesus. In 1 Thess. 4:15, Paul says he's talking about "the coming of the Lord". He doesn't imply at all that it is but one of many comings, nor does the Bible do so elsewhere. What the Thessalonians were worried about was what would happen to those who were dead at the end of the world, when Jesus returns.
The saints come with the Lord when He comes to the earth. You may say the "armies...clothed in fine linen, white and clean" are angels, but that would be ignoring Revelation 19:7-9... which clearly states who is clothed "in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints".
It says the Bride (the Church) is clothed with the righteousness of the saints (the Church's members). If you think that means the armies are made up solely of saints, that's fine with me. Now, the question is, where does it say that these saints mentioned here have been resurrected or raptured?
If you believe the millennium is "present and future" as you wrote, then you are claiming something is wrong with God's statement in Revelation 20:1-3... Sinc
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.... Seriously now, where do you see Paul in Philippians saying "because I just made a great confession" or "since I just got sprinkled with water" that "I can die at this moment, but not necessarily at the moment you read this"? Nothing Paul wrote there is conditional.
Look at the context. He is talking about wanting to die at that moment and thus be with Christ. If he were then in a state of grace and died, then there is nothing conditional about it: he would definitely go to heaven.
But as I've already shown with many quotes from the Bible, being in a state of grace right now does not guarantee that we will remain that way. We must persevere.
Thanks for pointing out that point about the rapture (popular name) or harpazo (Greek term) occuring. I totally agree, that's when the Lord returns IN THE CLOUDS, as the verse says.
Well, there's only one Second Coming of Jesus, and that is it. If you're saying that the Bible's description of Jesus "returning in the clouds" implies that He doesn't make it all the way down to the earth, then you're wrong. See the following:
Acts 1:9-11
And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."
Here, he started off on the ground and went up into the clouds into heaven. At the Second Coming, the process is reversed, and He comes down from the clouds all the way to the ground.
The verse also says the the DEAD IN CHRIST shall rise first, then those of us who are alive and saved.
The context here is that the Thessalonians were worrying about whether, if they were to die before the Second Coming, they would be at some disadvantage compared to those who would be alive at the Second Coming (i.e. whether they would resurrect and be present at Jesus' return). Paul reminds them that, as they have been united to Jesus' death and resurrection, they have nothing to worry about. If they die in Christ, then they can rest assured: they will resurrect in Christ.
No mention is made of those not dead in Christ because the Thessalonians weren't worried about that particular question. But the fact is that everyone will be resurrected then, both the saved and the unsaved.
John 5:28-29
Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
Then note that in Revelation 20 the dead not in Christ are brought forth to the White Throne judgment. As verse 20:6 says:
Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years
Those are the believers, obviously, who are resurrected at the rapture.
No, look at verse 4 (of Revelation 20), and you'll see that the believers here have no bodies; John sees only their souls. Thus they haven't been resurrected yet.
The first resurrection is the gaining of salvation, and thus the state of grace. "On such the second deat
the unfulfilled promises to the nation of Israel are still to come, clearly the Lord has much in store for them.
Paul talks about the Jews in Romans chapters 9 to 11. The promises to Israel are fulfilled when they accept their Messiah and become Christians.
And to answer your last two questions, yes I am pre-trib
The problem with this is that the Rapture takes place at the end of the world.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
"For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord."
You can see that the rapture takes place when the dead rise again, and Jesus returns at His Second Coming. In other words, it takes place at the end of the world. When Jesus returns, he will judge all of mankind, and some will go to heaven, and the others to hell (Mt. 25:31-46). There won't be anyone left behind on earth after that.
Claiming that Paul did not believe in eternal security is misinterpreting him, most usually done by out of context quotes and twisting of meanings. After all, Paul said:
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. [Philippians 1:21-24]
At certain times, we can be sure of going to heaven if we were to die at that very moment, such as right after our baptism, or after making a good confession. But there's no guarantee that, at some time in the future, we won't fall into sin. We must persevere.
Here are a few verses on this. In the first two, Paul refers to his own salvation:
Philippians 3:11-14
If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
1 Corinthians 9:27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
1 Corinthians 10:12 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
Romans 11:22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Galatians 6:9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
Hebrews 3:12-14 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end.
James 1:12,15-16 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.... Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren.
As your own source says, that view is in the minority.
So the truth can be decided by a vote? The view that Jesus is God is also a minority opinion, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.
And certainly does nothing to calm the anti-Semitism problems.
Then you're saying the Bible is anti-Semitic.
The idea that John wrote prior to 70 (usually this heretical view puts it about 66 or so)...
If this is a heretical view then, according to Sola Scriptura, the Bible must clearly state that John wrote the book of Revelation after 70 AD.
The idea that John wrote prior to 70... originated with the Jesuits (Alcazar, Spanish Jesuit, late sixteen - early seventeenth century), most likely due to the huge problems the RCC would have with it otherwise.
No, the idea existed long before then. For instance, the Muratorian Canon (about 170 AD) says that John wrote the book of Revelation before Paul wrote his epistles: "[T]he blessed Apostle Paul, following the rule of his predecessor John, writes to no more than seven churches by name... And John too, indeed, in the Apocalypse, although he writes only to seven churches, yet addresses all."
Also by 66 or so the churches in Asia Minor had been under the control of Paul, as evidence by all the Pauline epistles. Putting John on Patmos in 66, he would not have had time to get control of all the churches in Asia Minor to write the letters to them.
You don't need to control someone in order to write to that person. The seven churches of Revelation happen to be near Patmos.
Gnostics had not started to arise in force during the time of Paul; it was closer to the turn of the century that the hierarchical Gnostic concepts got going (see Nicolaitans).
The Nicolaitans weren't full-fledged Gnostics, but precursors to the Gnostics.
Now to the people who were close enough to know... Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, who had been a disciple of John. He wrote:
The Apocalypse was seen not long ago, but almost in our own generation, near the end of the reign of Domitian.
You're misquoting Irenaeus. He never said "The Apocalypse was seen not long ago". See the following:
This is the only evidence [in favor of a late date for Revelation] of any value, and it is so slight as to be nearly worthless. Irenaeus was a church father of the second century, many of whose letters have come down to us. Concerning the mystic number of the beast given Revelation 13:18, Irenaeus says thus: "If it were necessary to have his name distinctly announced at the present time it would doubtless have been announced by him who saw the apocalypse; for it was not a great while ago that (it or he) was seen, but almost in our own generation, toward the end of Domitian's reign." It should be observed that the subject of the verb "was seen" is ambiguous, and may be understood to refer to either John or the apocalypse. To argue as do some that the subject of the verb is the apocalypse is purely arbitrary. In fairness, either John or the apocalypse may be the subject. But what is the point of saying the vision was seen in recent times? The nearness of the vision cannot not open the symbols of the book. It was the author John to whom it belonged to expound the meaning of the mystic name. Thus if the reference is to anything, it would seem to be to John. However, even if Irenaeus' statement is granted to mean what advocates of the 96 A.D. say, this is the only independent, external evidence favoring that date.
And Victorinus agrees, saying John was banished by Domitian. Eusebius agrees as well. Sulpicius Severus said:
John, the apostle and evangelist, was banished by Domitian to the isle of Patmos, where h
You continue to assert that Revelation talks about Jews killing Christians; by the time Revelation was written (90-95 AD, when John was on Patmos), Jerusalem had been a pile of rubble for twenty years.
Now the majority of scholars at present argue that Revelation was written by John at the end of his life around 96 AD during the reign of Emperor Domitian, during an alleged period of persecution of Christians.
However, the minority opinion (and the one we and a growing number of scholars in fact hold) is that Revelation was written shortly before 70 AD and the destruction of the Temple.... [T]here is growing evidence (see, for example, Kenneth L. Gentry's Before Jerusalem Fell) that Revelation can well be dated to the years just preceding the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. Underlying this date is the fact that throughout the rest of the New Testament the persecution which concerns both Jesus and the apostles is not Roman persecution but persecution launched by Jews against the Church and the theological implications of this. This persecution of the Church by Jews culminated (as Jesus prophesied in, for example, Matthew 24) in the judgment on the Temple when Jerusalem was sacked and the Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. This destruction of the temple and demolition of Jerusalem signified for the early Church the passing away of the Mosaic covenant and the establishment of the covenant of Christ.
And so, throughout the New Testament the persecution that preoccupies Christian thought is not persecution by Romans, but persecution by Jews. In the gospels, of course, it is the Jewish authorities at Jerusalem who initiate the persecution and eventual death of Jesus. Pilate is, at best, a reluctant participant. Similarly, it is a Roman soldier who declares, "Surely this man was a son of God." In other words, the gospels in no way depict the Church as a political revolutionary force in the Roman Empire. There is no particularly anti-Roman sentiment in the gospels, nor is there a particularly Roman persecution of Jesus in the gospels. Likewise, in the book of Acts, the first eight chapters show persecution against the Church coming exclusively from Jerusalem: from the priests, from men like Saul of Tarsus, and from others acting with the authority or approval of the Jerusalem elite. And as Acts and the New Testament continues, it is this mystery of Jewish persecution of the Church that continues to preoccupy the New Testament writers. Indeed, Paul meditates on it more than once in his epistles (most notably Romans 9-11) and with good reason. For he encounters constant persecution repeatedly throughout the book of Acts (both inside and outside Judea), and without any significant exception it originates from Jews who resent the kerygma or proclamation of the Gospel and its implications.
Citing ecumenically allied groups like Anglicans and parts of other denominations is like citing your siblings as proof that you grew up in a nice family.
You had said that Catholics are the only ones who believe that Mary was a perpetual virgin. So I demonstrated that this isn't the case. Anglican belief in this doesn't derive from ecumenicism, as it predates the ecumenical movement.
Remember a while ago, I gave you a nice summary of how to interpret the Bible, a document generally known as the Golden Rule of Bible Interpretation.
Why should I accept this rule? Where is this rule stated in the Bible?
The fact is that it contradicts the Bible. The following sentence: "God, in revealing His Word, neither intends nor permits the reader to be confused" contradicts what Peter says about Paul's epistles: "in which are some things hard to be understood." (2 Peter 3:16)
Dodging the point about Beziers and other RCC atrocities by asking if the Bible gives a required body count to get drunk on the blood of the saints is too blatantly flamebait to be responded to.
I had said that Revelation is speaking here of the Jews, but you replied by saying that the Jews had not killed enough Christians. First, how do we know that the Jews did not kill enough Christians to fulfill what Revelation says? On what do you base this assertion? Second, you said that only the Catholics have killed enough Christians. But others have killed as many (or more) Christians as the Catholics did. The Protestants have possibly killed more (including both Catholics and Protestants), but the Communists have certainly killed more Christians than either the Catholics or the Protestants. Muslims have also killed a lot of Christians over the years.
Just admit, as have so many Catholic sources, how many Manichaeans, Arians, Priscillianists, Paulicians, Bogomiles, Cathari, Waldensians, Albigensians, witches, Lollards, Hussites, Anabaptists, and Jews the RCC has slaughtered.
Most of these groups aren't Christians, and so don't fulfill what the book of Revelation is talking about. The following were Gnostics: Manichaeans, Priscillianists, Paulicians, Bogomils, Cathari, and Albigensians. Also, witches and Jews aren't Christians. It could also be said that the Arians aren't Christians either; but in any case, the Arians did more killing of Catholics than the other way around.
Catholic sources like the Jesuit historian Llorente, who was the last to have access to the source documents about the inquisition. He wrote that between 1481 and 1808 that the Spanish Inquisition condemned 341,000 persons.
This number is way too high. See this page concerning Llorente and how inaccurate he was.
Then you claim that 1Tim 4:1-3 does not apply to the RCC requirement for celibacy in priests
Right, because no one is forbidden to marry. People can freely choose whether they become a priest or get married or remain a single layman.
(instituted at Lateran in 1139, not practiced before then).
No, this isn't true. There were councils around the years 300 or 400 AD that talked about priestly celibacy and continence. See this page.
Pall, your scripture twisting has gotten pretty bad. First of all, if you showed Matthew 1:26 to 100 non-religious people and asked what the plain meaning of that passage was (explaining that "knew her" was a euphemism for coital relations), how many would say that the meaning of that was anything but the meaning everyone but the RCC gets from it?
First of all, it's not just the Catholic Church that understands it this way. So do many Anglicans, some Lutherans, all Orthodox, all the Oriental Orthodox, etc.
Second, if you were to show non-religious people some of the so-called "Biblical contradictions", they would say that the Bible contradicted itself and thus contained errors. What is true is that the Bible is completely free from error, but there's no guarantee that the "obvious" interpretation of the Bible by any particular person is the correct one. Indeed, many different Bible-only believers interpret the Bible in completely different ways, thus demonstrating that individual interpretation of the Bible doesn't work. Our interpretation of the Bible has to be in accordance with what the Apostles taught, and not just what a particular individual happens to think it means.
Second, you keep alleging that the RCC is not drunk with the blood of the saints.
The problem is that you're ignoring the fact that others, such as Protestants and Communists, may have killed more Christians than Catholics, so I don't see why Catholics are supposed to be the only ones to fit the description here. Where does the Bible say how many Christians killed would satisfy the description of "drunk"? The Jews (including Saul/Paul) attacked the early Christian Church, and it is this that John is talking about in Revelation.
Third, I'm sure you have a warped and twisted RCC apologetic for this, but 1 Timothy 4:1-3:
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth [emphasis added]
This describes the Gnostics, including the Albigensians. Look up a description of them and you'll see the similarity.
Quite clearly labels RCC "no meat on Fridays or you're going to hell" practices of the first half of the 20th century, and the 1139 decree at Lateran that forbid priests to marry completes the picture.
The difference, of course, is that we're not vegetarians, and we don't forbid marriage. Anyone is free to marry. Priests vow to remain celibate, but no one forces them to do so. If someone want to get married, then clearly God hasn't called that person to the priesthood in the Latin rite.
The RCC said eating meat on Fridays was a mortal sin through the first half of the twentieth century. So what does the RCC say happens to a person who went to Hell for eating meat on Fridays who died in 1950, after the mortal sin nature of that offense was lifted? Did they bounce up to purgatory when the pope signed the document?
If someone willfully disobeyed the Church, and her God-given authority, then that person can go to hell for it. If the Church changes a particular law, then one need no longer obey it, since the law is now void. It's just like if the government were to suddenly say that something that had been illegal was now legal. People who had broken the law (in the past) are criminals, but now someone who does the same thing is no longer a criminal.
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It's not an attack on the Scriptures to defend their integrity. The fact is that the Johannine comma doesn't appear in any Greek manuscript of the first millennium.
As to the reasons for 1 John 5:7 (the "Johannine Comma"), there are three types of arguments for it. First is the theological argument; this is obvious based on the myriad other places the trinity is taught in scripture. As 1 John 5:7 is a clear summary of all those points, it is certainly not introducing any new doctrine nor providing anything but an easily understood summarization of many other points in the scripture.
The fact that it's "an easily understood summarization" actually argues in favor of it being a commentary on the original text. Commentaries seek to explain obscure or difficult-to-understand passages in a clear way. It's someone's interpretation of "Spirit, water, and blood" as being a reference to the Trinity.
Also note that a forger (the RCC and textual critics' suppositional source of 1 John 5:7)
It's not a forger, it's an honest mistake. Someone wrote a comment in the margin. And, later on, someone else who was copying the manuscript assumed that the comment in the margin was meant as an attempt to correct a previous scribe's mistake, and so he inserted the comment into the text of his own copy of the Bible. There's no need to suppose malice on anyone's part here.
would have been far more likely to use "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" rather than "Father, Word, and Holy Spirit".
There's no difference between "Holy Ghost" and "Holy Spirit" in Latin. These are two English translations of "Spiritus Sanctus".
The second argument is grammatical. Note that in 1 John 5:8 which in the RCC manuscripts (Aleph, B, etc.) still mentions "spirit, water, and blood". Yet those are all neuter nouns, but are treated in verse 8 as masculine. If you omit the Johannine Comma, it's grammatically unbalanced. Yet leaving it in works very well; the masculine nouns "Father" and "Word" in verse 7 control the gender in the succeeding verse due to what's called the "attraction principle".
The grammatical argument is responded to here.
It is also mentioned by Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, and Jerome.
These are all Latin writers. Since we're discussing whether the Johannine comma appeared in Greek manuscripts, I fai
I want proof of your assertion that Popes ordered Crusaders to kill Jews they found along the way. Either provide the evidence for this, or apologize.
Splitting hairs about past participles or past tense is missing the point; the point is the act has been completed, whether illustrated by a verb or a participle or a gerundive. The point is that Christ has been crucified, the heinous, awful, terrible act has been completed for a long time.
The point is that Paul says that we Christians preach the crucified Christ (1 Corinthians 1:23), Christ in the state of crucifixion. It is precisely Christ on the cross that Paul is talking about here - it is the very fact that Christ was crucified that the Jews find to be a stumbling block, since the Messiah was supposed to be a great king, and not executed like a criminal.
We shouldn't be ashamed that Christ died for us; rather, we should glory in this:
Here Paul emphasizes Christ on the cross:
Christ's death on the cross is what shows us how much God loves us:
In fact, Jesus told us to commemorate His crucifixion in the Eucharist:
Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth: And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven. (Deu 4:15-19)
What this forbids is the making of images for the sake of worshipping them, and not the making of images as such. God Himself ordered images to be made:
Your claim that Mary was planning not to "know" Joseph is extremely weak, particularly in light of Matthew 1:23, Matthew 12, Matthew 13, Mark 3, Mark 6, Luke 8, and Galatians 1.
... among women". If she were sinless, she would know that she were; and she would be aware that would make her uniquely blessed and favoured.
What you have to understand is that all of the Bible is true, not just the parts that you can fit into what you believe. All those verses you mentioned can easily be understood in a way that agrees with what Luke 1:34 tells us (that Mary never intended to have sex). For instance, the Bible uses the word "brother" to refer to many close family relationships, so the verses you cited using the word "brother" do not contradict the fact that Mary remained a virgin all of her life. On the other hand, there's no way to make Luke 1:34 agree with your interpretation of those verses you mentioned. Therefore, your interpretation of these passages is incorrect.
in claiming that all those passages are incorrect,
Those passages are not incorrect, it is your interpretation of them that is incorrect. There is a difference.
And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.(Luk 1:28-29)
Here Mary is "troubled" at the angel saluting her as "highly favoured" and "blessed
As I said in the other thread, holy people are humble, and don't think of themselves as holy.
And from Daniel 9 she could have worked out (as Anna and Simeon did, see Luke 2:25-6 and 2:36-38) that the time was right for the birth of Messiah to a virgin, something she would be uniquely qualified for, being sinless.
I'm happy to see that you agree that being sinless would make one uniquely qualified to be the mother of the Messiah.
Yet she was surprised and had to be told "Fear not, Mary". Why would she be afraid of something she knew was inevitable?
You seem to assume that she would automatically know everything that was about to be told to her, but I don't see why that would be the case. As I said in the other thread, the meaning of prophecies isn't always clear until after they come true. Besides, I think a little fear is understandable under the circumstances.
Why would she have to be told that she "hast found favour with God"?
Why did Jesus have to be told "Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." (Luke 3:22)?
In Luke 11:28 the comparative "rather" is clear; in response to "Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked", He answered "But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it".
He says "yea rather", not "nay rather". He's not saying His mother isn't blessed.
The point of what He's saying here is that if you had a choice between being His mother (and not hearing the word of God and keeping it) and hearing the word of God and keeping it (but not being His mother), you'd be better off in the second category. But He's not at all denying that His mother is blessed, since she does hear the word of God and keep it; moreover, the Bible tells us elsewhere that Mary is blessed.
Believers are not sinless, yet the RCC claims Mary was
Believers are sometimes sinless, such as after their baptism or confession.
Praying to Mary you claim is the same as asking any other Christian to pray for us. That would have been true when she was here, but not now. She is dead now, and contact with the dead by us is forbidden throughout scripture.
We aren't forbidden to talk to the dead (for instance, think of Jesus at the Transfiguration); rather, we are forbidden to try (through magical means) to get the dead to talk to us, in an atte
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. (1 John 5:7)
This isn't part of the original Biblical text. The oldest Greek manuscripts that include it are from around 1200 AD or so. This started out as a comment written in the margins of the Bible that eventually got incorporated into the text of some manuscripts.
So where is the equally explicit verse or verses showing the sinlessness and assumption of Mary? Where is the equally explicit verse showing prayers to the dead?
Well, as I've asked many times, where in the Bible does it say that all Christian teachings are to be found in the Bible?
In any case, as far as Biblical allusions are concerned, I've already addressed the sinlessness question. With regard to the assumption, since the Ark is a type of Mary, the following could refer to her assumption:
Psalm 132:8
Arise, O LORD, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength.
Concerning asking the saints for prayers, there are various verses in which Christians are asked to pray for others. We are all members of the Body of Christ, and death doesn't change that. The saints in heaven would pray for us, their brothers in Christ, just as readily as we do, or even more so.
There is archaeological evidence that the early Christians asked the saints in heaven to pray for them. In the catacombs of Rome, there are many requests for prayers from the saints carved into the walls:
You want proof of the slaughters ordered by the popes,
No, I want proof of your assertion that Pope Innocent III ordered the slaughter at Beziers. Either provide it or apologize.
are you a priest or monk; or which are you training for?
Thanks for the compliment, but I'm just a layman.
Anyway, this book gives all the documentation of atrocities by popes you asked for.
That book contains many errors. See, for instance, this page and this one.
You claim the Ark of the Covenant is a type of Mary.
Yes, she bore Christ, just as the Ark bore the three types of Christ.
For example, the tables of the law are in the Ark. Mary did not bear the law, but Christ did fulfill the law.
Christ is the Word, just as the Law is the Word of God. So the tables are a type of Christ. The Ark bore the tables, just as Mary bore Christ.
There is a pot of manna in the Ark; Mary did not contain food for all, but Christ is the bread of life (John 6:33-51).
Yes, Christ is the bread of life, and so the manna is a type of Christ. Mary bore Christ, just as the Ark bore the manna.
There is a budded rod of Aaron in the Ark; Mary did not contain a rod, but Christ is the anointed high priest, which is what the rod was about (also see Isaiah 11:1).
Yes, the rod is
Perhaps not explicitly, but there are lots of possible indirect allusions to this.
First, I've already talked about the word "kecharitomene", which states that Mary was embued with grace in a special way.
Second, there's the prophecy in Genesis 3:15, which states that there is a special enmity between Satan and the mother of the Messiah. Enmity with Satan implies lack of sin.
Third, the Ark of the Covenant can be seen as a type of Mary. The Ark contained within it types of Christ, just as Mary had Christ within herself. The Ark was specially constructed from materials known for their incorruptibility (gold and shittim wood). Thus, Mary was also specially made for her role: she was given the grace to be preserved from the corruption of sin.
Fourth, Christ is the second Adam. The prophecy of Genesis 3:15 points to Mary as the New Eve. Eve said yes to Satan and brought sin into the world, while Mary said yes to God and brought salvation into the world. Adam, Eve, and Christ were all created or conceived without sin, and the same would be true of Mary.
For a doctrinal point to be made, surely the Holy Spirit would have inspired an author to make that less obvious point more clear than the point that Jesus was without sin, which is obvious since He is also God.
Where does the Bible say that all doctrines must be clearly stated in the Bible?
Indeed even the RCC did not declare her sinless until 1854 (by Pius IX).
So what? The doctrine of the Trinity wasn't defined until 325 AD. That doesn't mean that it wasn't believed before then.
Why did centuries of "infallible" popes get it wrong then?
I'm not aware that they did. But I think you misunderstand what papal infallibility is about. The following is from the Council of Vatican I:
Ludwig Ott, in his book "Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma" (p. 287), describes the conditions for infallibility:
Innocent III said "she was produced in sin, but she brought forth without sin [De festo Assump., sermon 2]".
It doesn't say "she was produced with sin", but "in sin". The "sin" or lack thereof applies to the parents, not to the children.
Also isn't the RCC interpretation of Revelation 12:2 is Mary giving birth? If so, then since she is travailing in birth, she is subject to the curse of painful childbirth given to sinners in Genesis 3.
Well, to my knowledge there's no official interpretation of that passage, but the Woman in Revelation 12 can be seen as the Jewish people of the Old Testament, the Church of the New Testament, and Mary. The various details found in that chapter can apply partly to each of the three. Mary was, indeed, the Mother of Christ. But the birth pangs there refer to the people
You again issue the "produce the documents" challenge about the slaughter ordered by the popes; again, these are historically proven facts,
Crusaders did "slaughter Jews along the way", as you described it, but this was not ordered by any Pope. So what you've done here is bear false witness against your neighbors (the Popes).
if you wish to dispute them, then the burden of proof is on you to provide contrary evidence.
That's not the way it works. If you make an accusation against someone, then it's up to you to provide evidence to back up your accusation.
Your citation of 1 Cor 1:23 is a good one, but note that the word "crucified" is in the PAST TENSE. It therefore means that He was crucified, that heinous act is complete.
No, it's not a past tense there. The word "crucified" here is a past participle, and it's acting as a participial adjective describing Christ.
So "we preach Christ crucified" means "we preach the crucified Christ." This is precisely what the image of Christ on the cross does, it "preaches" that Christ died for our sins.
Yet the RCC shows Him at the moment of what Satan thought was his triumphant victory, having killed the Son of God.
So, in other words, you disagree with the Bible when it says "We preach Christ crucified."
An empty cross as protestants use is more accurate, He is no longer there.
Maybe an empty cross shows that you don't believe that Christ was ever crucified... Or that you, like Satan, wish that Christ had never been crucified.
I wasn't being serious, I was merely imitating what you did above. Perhaps now you can see that the way you cast the worst possible light on everything isn't very reasonable.
Back to the claim that the RCC does not worship Mary. Uh-huh. Jesus clearly told us to pray to God the Father, note the disciples' prayer in Matthew 6 and Luke 11. He never said "pray to my Mom"
Jesus also never said to pray to Himself, or to the Holy Spirit. Does that mean it's wrong for us to do so?
He never said "gee that's a tough one, better see my Mom about that one".
Actually, that's precisely what He does at the wedding at Cana. The people there had a problem, but He was unwilling to help them. He waited until His mother intervened on their behalf before He actually did anything to help them.
Yet the RCC prays to Mary, note the Rosary's conclusion: "Hail, holy Queen [of heaven], Mother of Mercy! Our life, our sweetness, and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping, in this valley of tears.".
Let's have a look at this:
Hail, holy Queen [of heaven]
Why did you add that last part? To make it look worse in your own eyes? In any case, in accordance with Biblical usage, Mary is a Queen because her son is a King, as I've already explained.
Mother of Mercy
Mercy=Jesus
Our life, our sweetness, and our hope!
This refers to the idea that Mary prays to God and asks Him to give us His grace. So Mary is our life and hope in the sense that we receive grace through her prayers, and grace gives us spiritual life. The implication here is that without Mary's prayers, we would not get as much grace; so for some of us, Mary's prayers might mean the difference between salvati
the point about "I know not a man" only says that at that point in time she was a virgin; we all agree on that. Nothing in that sentence says "I will never know a man". Had the intent of the Holy Spirit been to tell us that she was to remain a virgin, He could have communicated that point by changing the tense of the verb there. But instead the plain, simple, clear, direct reading of that is that at that point in time, she was a virgin.
The problem is that, if she were planning to have sex, then what she says doesn't make sense. She clearly understands that women get pregnant by "knowing" men, and yet she, a betrothed woman, expresses that she doesn't know how it is possible for her to get pregnant... If she were planning to have a normal marriage, then she would soon "know" Joseph. But her reply to the angel indicates that she wasn't planning to do so.
When Jesus said "rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it" He clearly communicated that Mary was not blessed above the status of any believer who is faithful.
Where does He say that? Does everyone have exactly the same level of faithfulness? Someone who is better at hearing the word of God and keeping it is more blessed than someone else who is less good at that.
Besides, Mary's blessedness has already been established Luke 1. Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, says that Mary is blessed among women, so clearly she's very blessed. Also, Elizabeth says in Luke 1:43 that it's an honor for her to be visited by the mother of her Lord. And in verse 44, John the Baptist leapt in the womb for joy when he heard Mary's voice.
For the RCC to exalt her to the point of praying to her is a clearly extrabiblical doctrine.
Asking Mary to pray for you is no different than asking another Christian to pray for you. If Christians on earth pray for others, then how much more do the Christians in heaven do so. But I'll have more to say on this in the other thread.
I fail to see what difference this makes. No matter how many stages there were, eventually the normal course of things was for the couple to have sex. Clearly Mary wasn't planning to do so. I'll go into more detail in the other thread.
And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it. (Luk 11:27-28)
Here Jesus Christ says that more blessed than His mother are those who hear or understand the Word of God, and keep or obey it. Mary was certainly not considered blessed by Him.
Where does it say that He didn't consider her blessed? Mary is someone who hears the word of God and keeps it, so He's calling her blessed too.
Is Jesus denying here that He is good? Is He denying that He is God?
Quod Erat Demonstratum
A small correction:
Quod Erat Demonstrandum
No, I obviously did not imply they are equally in error. But the Jews clearly have a false idea of God.
And no, God is not calling me to be a member of a pagan-derived, nicolaitan church whose head kisses the Koran and who worships Mary and has idols galore and who portrays Satan's transitory moment of triumph by using crucifixes instead of the empty cross.
Hmmm, lots of little attacks here. No, we're not pagan-derived, we don't worship Mary, we don't have idols, etc.
The Nicolaitans were a sect based on unrestrained indulgence. I don't see how this has anything to do with Catholicism.
As for depicting Christ on the cross, why do you have a problem with that? "We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness." (1 Corinthians 1:23) It is through His death on the cross that we can be saved. An empty cross doesn't necessarily represent a resurrected Christ - after all, the cross was empty right after He was taken down from it, and He was dead then. A cross with Christ on it, on the other hand, is a visual reminder of the fact that He loved us enough to give up His life for us, and thus obtain for us salvation.
Anyway, let's look at things objectively. The Church in the Bible is described as having certain sacraments. The Catholic Church has them. Does your church? Here are two I've already mentioned:
The confession of sins:
The Eucharist, which is the Body and Blood of Christ:
Finally, the Bible tells us that God gave Peter the grace to protect the faith of the other Christians. (Luke 22:31-32) Now, this makes complete sense to Catholics in light of the Papacy. How does your religion explain the fact that Jesus prayed only for Peter, and not for the other Christians also? That is, how do you explain the fact that God chose to use one man, Peter, as the means through which to protect the faith of His Church?
Okay, now we get to your explanations of the anti-Once-Saved-Always-Saved verses:
Philippians 3:11-14, you did not include verses 9 and 10:
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
(Phi 3:9-10)
Clearly Paul is saying here that he has no inherent righteousness through any behavior or works, rather the only righteousness he has is from faith in Christ. He then, in the verses you extracted, states that he is always seeking improvement. However put in more full context, this makes the point against any of our works having anything to do with righteousness, since the only righteousness we
You correctly point out that Jesus was baptized only because it was to fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:15). But note the verse before that, Jesus is challenged, to the point that John the Baptist "forbad him" (Matthew 3:14), since it was clear that Jesus was without sin.
Right. So we see from this that receiving something that is meant for sinners does not mean that the recipient is a sinner.
Yet no one, anywhere in the Bible, calls Mary sinless or without fault.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that all truth is found in the Bible.
In fact she knows she needs a Saviour, as she cites in the magnificat.
She doesn't say she needs a Savior, she says she has a Savior.
Luke 1:47
"And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."
You citations of the OT all have one common element: whoever was applying the sacrifices, and the person (not thing) on whose behalf the sacrifice was made, were all sinners.
What you are ignoring is that, in all the cases I cited, what was being cleansed was ceremonial impurity, not sin. Also, in one case, a sin offering was used to cleanse an altar, which cannot be tainted with sin. Thus, the use of a sin offering does not imply sin in the one cleansed.
You maintain Mary was sinless. Since after the Fall no one was sinless,
After the Fall, two people were sinless: Jesus and His mother Mary. Jesus is sinless because He is God, and Mary because God gave her the grace to be sinless.
Note also that no one told her not to make a sin offering, or to offer only one of the turtledoves and not the one for the sin offering.
As I said, it was the Law. Why would anyone suggest to her that she break the Law?
Making a sin offering when there is no sin would be denying God's power to have created her without sin; that would be blasphemy and a sin.
No, not at all. And, as I've already shown, a sin offering does not imply the presence of sin in the one cleansed.
Does the fact that Jesus received a baptism of repentance when He had nothing to repent mean that He denied His own sinlessness, and therefore sinned?
Go to Beziers, France some day - they have a tourist industry built up around the slaughter that happened there one afternoon on the pope's orders.
The Pope never ordered this. Either produce the document in which he did order this, or apologize.
Hi there.
these have been interesting conversations to read. I have this question pressing on my mind. The Bible nowhere indicates the lofty position that the RCC places Mary in.
There's lots of different reasons for our view of Mary. For instance, concerning the efficacy of her prayers for us: have a look at the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-10). Jesus was not going to help the people there with their wine problem, because His time had not yet come. And yet, despite this, Mary was able to get Jesus to help them...
Have a look at this page for more background on this.
Justification by grace through faith, and not by works, is taught with amazing clarity in the Bible, hundreds of verses can be found to prove this position beyond question. Yet, I fail to have seen a single verse that would make us think that Mary was anything other than a normal woman, blessed by God to be the mother of our Messiah.
There isn't any Biblical verse that clearly states that God is a Trinity, but we believe it nonetheless.
I have to say, that I find it an amazing stretch based on extra-biblical opinions to say that Mary did not have further children:
First of all, it's not a matter of "opinion" at all, but of historical fact. The Bible isn't a book of fiction; it tells us about things that actually happened in the real world. The early Christians knew very well that Mary had no other children, and they didn't need the Bible to tell them this.
Second, where does the Bible say that it contains all truth?
But, as it turns out, the Bible does tell us that Mary and Joseph were not planning to ever have sex. We can see this from the first chapter of Luke.
If Mary intended to have a normal marriage, including sexual intercourse, one would have expected her to react in the following manner: "How wonderful! Joseph and I will be the parents of the Messiah!" But instead, what she said is:
If Mary had intended to have sexual intercourse with Joseph, what she says here makes no sense at all. Thus, she intended to remain a virgin even in marriage.
"Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit...'"
How does the fact that Joseph thought Mary was a loose woman imply that he will eventually have sex with her?
It would be no wife if he could not do that which God put in us.
Among the Jews in that time, people were already considered husband and wife while they were engaged (i.e. before they even had sex with each other). So in Mary and Joseph's case, it would merely be a life-long extension of that state. It is not the most common form of marriage, of course, but it's not completely unknown. Gandhi, for instance, lived with his wife without sex for the last several decades of their married life.
The disciples when Jesus told them that they shouldn't divorce said it is better then that a man not get married. Jesus said that it
I just did so here.
I realize you are not going to listen to why Once Saved, Always Saved is the true reading of Scripture based on our discussions here.
Well, maybe it would help if you actually offered me some sort of argument in defense of your position.
Here are the verses I sent you. Please respond to each one individually, showing me how they agree with your doctrine of "Once Saved, Always Saved".
And then you claim that
Muslims intend to worship the same God as we do (I believe their explicit intention is to worship the God of Abraham)
Amazing. Just amazing. Muslims believe their allah is a vengeful, arbitrary, and capricious god, and that only by killing infidels can they be guaranteed heaven.
Indeed, the Muslims are very wrong in how they see God, but then again so are the Jews. God is actually a Trinity, and neither the Muslims nor the Jews acknowledge this. Anyway, my point was that the intention of the Muslims is to worship the same God as we do. God calls them to worship Him, but they are ignorant of some of the truth, and so they respond to His grace in the best way they know how.
God calls everyone to become members of His Church, the Catholic Church. You presumably don't realize this yet. Assuming that you act in good faith, and are actually trying to seek the truth and do what He wants you to do, then you can be saved despite not formally being a Catholic, since God understands that you have limitations due to your upbringing, etc. However, once you realize that God wants you to join the Church, then you must do so, since that is what you now know God wants you to do for your salvation.
Your assert that "Mary was conceived without sin, through the grace of God. Thus, she was saved from sin. Without God's intervention, she would have been in a state of sin, but God saved her from ever being in that state."
Our Lord Jesus Christ was of course born without sin as he was the seed of the woman, and did not inherit Adam's sin nature.
Jesus was born without sin because He is God. It has nothing to do with His being the seed of a woman. On the other hand, the entire universe was affected by Adam's fall, and yet the universe isn't descended from Adam:
Romans 8:20-22
For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
You (and the RCC which you defend so vigorously) state that Mary was also born without sin, but from the seed of Adam. Yet if that were true, then there is a way for Adam's race to be born without sin;
Yes, through the grace of God. Mary was saved just like anyone else: through God's grace. The only difference between Mary and the rest of us with regard to being saved is that Mary was saved at her conception, and while the rest of us are saved later on.
then Jesus died for nothing, according to the RCC interpretations.
It is only because Jesus died that Mary could be saved, whether at her conception or at any other time. Without Christ's sacrifice, Mary (and everyone else) would die in a state of sin and be damned.
In the gospels, he asks, as in Matthew 26:39
O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt
He asked the Father that if there were any other way to redeem Adam's race, that the cup (of having all of your sin, my sin, the world's sin put upon Him) pass from Him. Yet, according to God's holy word, there was no other way, Jesus had to die for our sins.
Exactly. Thus, Mary was saved through Christ's sacrifice.
And by the definitions of John in his epistles, that [being anti-Biblical] is equated to anti-Christ.
Being anti-Biblical is certainly not a good thing. But what you say here about John's definitions of the Antichrist isn't true. John describes the Antichrist as someone who denies that Jesus is the Messiah or that Christ has a human nature:
1 John 2:22-23
Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.
1 John 4:3
And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist...
2 John 1:7
For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
You then claim that the word (Strong's 5487) translated "thou that art highly favoured" means "full of grace". Yet even Thayer's lexicon says it's:
to make graceful i.e. charming, lovely, agreeable
What makes us agreeable to God is grace.
The definition you offered above is Thayer's first definition of "charitoo". The second definition offers another possible translation of the word as it is used in Lk. 1:28: "endued with grace".
And look at the other use of the word, in Ephesians 1:6
To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
That context surely does not carry the meaning you and the RCC are trying to force upon the humble "handmaid of the Lord" Mary.
As you say, the context is different. But both cases refer to a giving of grace by God.
As
A formal excommunication is not meant to be used for "politically correct" purposes, to distance oneself from someone we find distasteful. It is meant as a warning to Christians who have left the faith, in the hope that they will reconsider and return to the Church (like the sentiment expressed in 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15). This presupposes that the person in question would have some interest in belonging to the Church in the first place. Hitler and Mussolini had no interest in belonging to the Church (they were, in fact, enemies of the Church for quite a long time). They weren't even Christians. So a formal excommunication would be pointless.
Thank you Pall, you have made my point for me. The Roman Catholic Church teaches, as you have just ably illustrated, that believers are in perpetual jeopardy of losing salvation, unless they perform properly.
No, what I have illustrated is that the Bible teaches this. Why don't you accept what the Bible teaches?
This is best summarized as "works salvation".
No, works salvation means that one can be saved through our own efforts. This is false. We actually gain salvation only through the free gift of God's grace. What I'm talking about (losing salvation) can happen only after we have already received the grace of salvation. It is a rejection of the gift God has given us.
Did Adam work for his salvation? No, he was created "saved" as a gift from God. But did Adam reject God's gift? Yes, he sinned and thus lost his salvation.
Biblical Christianity, in direct contrast to the RCC and many Protestant denominations, teaches eternal security. We can screw up (who doesn't?) and lose some rewards, and get chastised; but once saved, always saved.
In that case, please show me the correct way to interpret all those verses I sent you. The last explanation you gave me didn't apply to any of them.
See we Biblical Christians believe the simple, direct teaching of our Lord, as in John 10:25-29
Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
Here Jesus clearly states that he will give believers eternal life, and that we shall never perish and that we cannot be plucked out of His Father's hand.
He gives us eternal life, and we can live our eternal life in heaven if we persevere in His grace to the end. We cannot be plucked out of God's hand by anyone else, but we can freely decide to leave God's hand. God respects our free will.
As for the idea that works are required for salvation, as you have so convincingly shown the Roman Catholic Church teaches
I have not shown this, nor does the Catholic Church teach it.
Read Ephesians 2, not a verse out of context, but an entire chapter:
I agree with all of that.
Anyone who has accepted the free gift of Jesus is of the household of God; He does not throw us out of the house for being what we are, inherently sinful.
First, He does not throw us out, we leave of our own free will. And if we repent, we can return to Him. Second, once we are saved, we are not doomed to sin whether we like it or not. We do have concupiscence and temptations to deal with, but God gives us sufficient grace to overcome them and avoid sin. If we sin, we have only ourselves to blame. It is not inevitable that we will sin, and to say otherwise is to deny the sufficiency of God's grace.
I am indeed quite grateful for the good works of the RCC, but if you're going to cite them, you have to accept the bad as well.
I find it somewhat amusing to hear this coming from you. Did you cite any good along with the bad? In any case, as I pointed out, the fruits that the Bible are talking about are those that flow from erroneous doctrines, and not from the sins of individuals who decide to ignore correct doctrine.
And saying that Poland was the cause of the collapse of the USSR is a bit off base, even Gorby says it was the financial ruin they were facing as Reagan was getting SDI going. Socialism can't outperform Capitalism, and that's what failed them. Of course open information (through faxes and laser print
You claim that
Mary was saved at her conception, but she was saved nonetheless.
Saved from what? Unless she was a sinner, she didn't need a Saviour. Yet she clearly knew when she called God her Saviour that she needed one, hence she knew she had sinned (Luke 1:47).
Ever since the Original Sin, the general rule is that we begin life in the fallen state: we are in a state of sin from the moment of our conception, and we can be saved later on in our life through God's grace. On the other hand, just as Adam and Eve were created without sin, Mary was conceived without sin, through the grace of God. Thus, she was saved from sin. Without God's intervention, she would have been in a state of sin, but God saved her from ever being in that state.
Thus the example I gave: Let's imagine that you fell into a pit (out of which it is impossible for you to climb on your own), and I pulled you out. It could then be said that I had saved you from the pit. Now, let's imagine that you were about to fall into the very same pit, but this time I stopped you from actually falling in. Have I not saved you from the pit in this case as well? In either case, without my help, you'd still be in the pit. So even if Mary was saved at her conception, rather than later on, she was still saved through Jesus.
And while we're on that topic, in Luke 1:28 Mary is called "blessed art thou among women" which the RCC uses to raise Mary above all humanity.
Actually, it was God who chose her as His Mother, not us. But the word "blessed" here is not the only Biblical word to look at. For instance, also in Luke 1:28: "And the angel came in unto her, and said, 'Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.'"
What the KJV translates as "thou that art highly favoured" is, in the original Greek, only one word, a title given to Mary by the angel: "kecharitomene". It is better translated as "full of grace". Charis means grace, the verb "charitoo" means "to embue with grace". In any case, since the giving of a title or a name in the Bible tends to mean that the title represents something significant or special about that person, the title "kecharitomene" means that Mary has been especially embued with grace. We take this to mean that she has been completely filled with grace at her conception, and thus freed from sin, in preparation for her role as the mother of Christ.
There are also other Biblical reasons for this, such as the Biblical comparisons of Mary with the Ark of the Covenant.
Yet the word "blessed" there is the same word (Strongs 2127) as in Galatians 3:9 "So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." So Mary is told she is blessed with the same word as any believer is told they are. Not like the RCC says.
Actually, Christ is also said to be "blessed" using the very same word:
Luke 1:41-42
Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: and she spake out with a loud voice, and said, "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb."
So you're saying that Christ is only as blessed as any believer? Or would you agree that the same word can express different amounts of blessedness?
And in Judges 5:24 "Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be". Note that Jael is not blessed "among" but "above" women. So she should outrank Mary. Yet the RCC has, to all appearances, pretty much ignored Jael.
Jael is an Old Testament type of Mary. She prefigures Mary: both do their part to fight the enemy (a different enemy in each case though). By the way, the expression "blessed among" means the same as "blessed above" in Hebrew idiom.
You repeatedly claim that the women on the beast is the city of Jerusalem riding on Rome. Yet Revelation 17:18 disproves that: "And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth."
As
Okay, let's take a look at them one by one, and see if they can be interpreted in this way.
Here he's talking about whether or not he will "attain unto the resurrection of the dead". So your interpretation doesn't fit.
Here he's talking about whether or not he will be a "castaway", rejected by God. So your interpretation doesn't fit.
Have a look at what comes before this.
1 Corinthians 10:1-6
Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. ["Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness." (Numbers 14:16)] Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
So these things are an example for us, showing that those who are saved can spiritually die; just as the Israelites sinned and thus died. They had been saved from slavery, and were supposed to go to the Promised Land, but they didn't because they had sinned.
1 Corinthians 10:7-11
Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
These are more examples for us, showing that sin results in spiritual death. So now we have finally come to the verse I had quoted earlier: "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Paul's whole point here is that we can lose our salvation if we sin. This danger is always there, which is why we must "take heed" lest we fall.
Here is the context of the above verse:
Romans 11:16-24
If the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, w
Yet again, you're doing the "argument from silence" tactic to interpreting the Scriptures.
No, not at all. It is you who is arguing from silence. I'm saying that Paul believes that he's saved, which is what the text says. You, on the other hand, are adding the idea that Paul supposedly believes that he will continue to be saved until he dies. Nowhere does Paul say this. Not only that, but Paul has often said the opposite, that we can lose our salvation.
Here are some verses on this topic that I've already sent you. I'd like to see your response to them:
The same flaw exists in your discussion about Jesus's departure in Acts 1. While the angels do say He will return in the same way, that certainly does not preclude Him coming as 1 Thessalonians says He will.
... which clearly states who is clothed "in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints".
... Sinc
Acts 1 and 1 Thes. 4 are clearly describing the same event. There's only one Second Coming of Jesus. In 1 Thess. 4:15, Paul says he's talking about "the coming of the Lord". He doesn't imply at all that it is but one of many comings, nor does the Bible do so elsewhere. What the Thessalonians were worried about was what would happen to those who were dead at the end of the world, when Jesus returns.
The saints come with the Lord when He comes to the earth. You may say the "armies...clothed in fine linen, white and clean" are angels, but that would be ignoring Revelation 19:7-9
It says the Bride (the Church) is clothed with the righteousness of the saints (the Church's members). If you think that means the armies are made up solely of saints, that's fine with me. Now, the question is, where does it say that these saints mentioned here have been resurrected or raptured?
If you believe the millennium is "present and future" as you wrote, then you are claiming something is wrong with God's statement in Revelation 20:1-3
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.
Seriously now, where do you see Paul in Philippians saying "because I just made a great confession" or "since I just got sprinkled with water" that "I can die at this moment, but not necessarily at the moment you read this"? Nothing Paul wrote there is conditional.
Look at the context. He is talking about wanting to die at that moment and thus be with Christ. If he were then in a state of grace and died, then there is nothing conditional about it: he would definitely go to heaven.
But as I've already shown with many quotes from the Bible, being in a state of grace right now does not guarantee that we will remain that way. We must persevere.
Thanks for pointing out that point about the rapture (popular name) or harpazo (Greek term) occuring. I totally agree, that's when the Lord returns IN THE CLOUDS, as the verse says.
Well, there's only one Second Coming of Jesus, and that is it. If you're saying that the Bible's description of Jesus "returning in the clouds" implies that He doesn't make it all the way down to the earth, then you're wrong. See the following:
Here, he started off on the ground and went up into the clouds into heaven. At the Second Coming, the process is reversed, and He comes down from the clouds all the way to the ground.
The verse also says the the DEAD IN CHRIST shall rise first, then those of us who are alive and saved.
The context here is that the Thessalonians were worrying about whether, if they were to die before the Second Coming, they would be at some disadvantage compared to those who would be alive at the Second Coming (i.e. whether they would resurrect and be present at Jesus' return). Paul reminds them that, as they have been united to Jesus' death and resurrection, they have nothing to worry about. If they die in Christ, then they can rest assured: they will resurrect in Christ.
No mention is made of those not dead in Christ because the Thessalonians weren't worried about that particular question. But the fact is that everyone will be resurrected then, both the saved and the unsaved.
Then note that in Revelation 20 the dead not in Christ are brought forth to the White Throne judgment. As verse 20:6 says:
Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years
Those are the believers, obviously, who are resurrected at the rapture.
No, look at verse 4 (of Revelation 20), and you'll see that the believers here have no bodies; John sees only their souls. Thus they haven't been resurrected yet.
The first resurrection is the gaining of salvation, and thus the state of grace. "On such the second deat
Paul talks about the Jews in Romans chapters 9 to 11. The promises to Israel are fulfilled when they accept their Messiah and become Christians.
And to answer your last two questions, yes I am pre-trib
The problem with this is that the Rapture takes place at the end of the world.
You can see that the rapture takes place when the dead rise again, and Jesus returns at His Second Coming. In other words, it takes place at the end of the world. When Jesus returns, he will judge all of mankind, and some will go to heaven, and the others to hell (Mt. 25:31-46). There won't be anyone left behind on earth after that.
Claiming that Paul did not believe in eternal security is misinterpreting him, most usually done by out of context quotes and twisting of meanings. After all, Paul said:
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. [Philippians 1:21-24]
At certain times, we can be sure of going to heaven if we were to die at that very moment, such as right after our baptism, or after making a good confession. But there's no guarantee that, at some time in the future, we won't fall into sin. We must persevere.
Here are a few verses on this. In the first two, Paul refers to his own salvation:
And from John:
If we receive the witness of men
So the truth can be decided by a vote? The view that Jesus is God is also a minority opinion, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.
And certainly does nothing to calm the anti-Semitism problems.
Then you're saying the Bible is anti-Semitic.
The idea that John wrote prior to 70 (usually this heretical view puts it about 66 or so)...
If this is a heretical view then, according to Sola Scriptura, the Bible must clearly state that John wrote the book of Revelation after 70 AD.
The idea that John wrote prior to 70
No, the idea existed long before then. For instance, the Muratorian Canon (about 170 AD) says that John wrote the book of Revelation before Paul wrote his epistles: "[T]he blessed Apostle Paul, following the rule of his predecessor John, writes to no more than seven churches by name... And John too, indeed, in the Apocalypse, although he writes only to seven churches, yet addresses all."
Also by 66 or so the churches in Asia Minor had been under the control of Paul, as evidence by all the Pauline epistles. Putting John on Patmos in 66, he would not have had time to get control of all the churches in Asia Minor to write the letters to them.
You don't need to control someone in order to write to that person. The seven churches of Revelation happen to be near Patmos.
Gnostics had not started to arise in force during the time of Paul; it was closer to the turn of the century that the hierarchical Gnostic concepts got going (see Nicolaitans).
The Nicolaitans weren't full-fledged Gnostics, but precursors to the Gnostics.
Now to the people who were close enough to know... Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, who had been a disciple of John. He wrote:
The Apocalypse was seen not long ago, but almost in our own generation, near the end of the reign of Domitian.
You're misquoting Irenaeus. He never said "The Apocalypse was seen not long ago". See the following:
And Victorinus agrees, saying John was banished by Domitian. Eusebius agrees as well. Sulpicius Severus said:
John, the apostle and evangelist, was banished by Domitian to the isle of Patmos, where h
From the article on Revelation I've been quoting from:
Citing ecumenically allied groups like Anglicans and parts of other denominations is like citing your siblings as proof that you grew up in a nice family.
You had said that Catholics are the only ones who believe that Mary was a perpetual virgin. So I demonstrated that this isn't the case. Anglican belief in this doesn't derive from ecumenicism, as it predates the ecumenical movement.
Remember a while ago, I gave you a nice summary of how to interpret the Bible, a document generally known as the Golden Rule of Bible Interpretation.
Why should I accept this rule? Where is this rule stated in the Bible?
The fact is that it contradicts the Bible. The following sentence: "God, in revealing His Word, neither intends nor permits the reader to be confused" contradicts what Peter says about Paul's epistles: "in which are some things hard to be understood." (2 Peter 3:16)
Dodging the point about Beziers and other RCC atrocities by asking if the Bible gives a required body count to get drunk on the blood of the saints is too blatantly flamebait to be responded to.
I had said that Revelation is speaking here of the Jews, but you replied by saying that the Jews had not killed enough Christians. First, how do we know that the Jews did not kill enough Christians to fulfill what Revelation says? On what do you base this assertion? Second, you said that only the Catholics have killed enough Christians. But others have killed as many (or more) Christians as the Catholics did. The Protestants have possibly killed more (including both Catholics and Protestants), but the Communists have certainly killed more Christians than either the Catholics or the Protestants. Muslims have also killed a lot of Christians over the years.
Just admit, as have so many Catholic sources, how many Manichaeans, Arians, Priscillianists, Paulicians, Bogomiles, Cathari, Waldensians, Albigensians, witches, Lollards, Hussites, Anabaptists, and Jews the RCC has slaughtered.
Most of these groups aren't Christians, and so don't fulfill what the book of Revelation is talking about. The following were Gnostics: Manichaeans, Priscillianists, Paulicians, Bogomils, Cathari, and Albigensians. Also, witches and Jews aren't Christians. It could also be said that the Arians aren't Christians either; but in any case, the Arians did more killing of Catholics than the other way around.
Catholic sources like the Jesuit historian Llorente, who was the last to have access to the source documents about the inquisition. He wrote that between 1481 and 1808 that the Spanish Inquisition condemned 341,000 persons.
This number is way too high. See this page concerning Llorente and how inaccurate he was.
Then you claim that 1Tim 4:1-3 does not apply to the RCC requirement for celibacy in priests
Right, because no one is forbidden to marry. People can freely choose whether they become a priest or get married or remain a single layman.
(instituted at Lateran in 1139, not practiced before then).
No, this isn't true. There were councils around the years 300 or 400 AD that talked about priestly celibacy and continence. See this page.
Pall, your scripture twisting has gotten pretty bad. First of all, if you showed Matthew 1:26 to 100 non-religious people and asked what the plain meaning of that passage was (explaining that "knew her" was a euphemism for coital relations), how many would say that the meaning of that was anything but the meaning everyone but the RCC gets from it?
First of all, it's not just the Catholic Church that understands it this way. So do many Anglicans, some Lutherans, all Orthodox, all the Oriental Orthodox, etc.
Second, if you were to show non-religious people some of the so-called "Biblical contradictions", they would say that the Bible contradicted itself and thus contained errors. What is true is that the Bible is completely free from error, but there's no guarantee that the "obvious" interpretation of the Bible by any particular person is the correct one. Indeed, many different Bible-only believers interpret the Bible in completely different ways, thus demonstrating that individual interpretation of the Bible doesn't work. Our interpretation of the Bible has to be in accordance with what the Apostles taught, and not just what a particular individual happens to think it means.
Second, you keep alleging that the RCC is not drunk with the blood of the saints.
The problem is that you're ignoring the fact that others, such as Protestants and Communists, may have killed more Christians than Catholics, so I don't see why Catholics are supposed to be the only ones to fit the description here. Where does the Bible say how many Christians killed would satisfy the description of "drunk"? The Jews (including Saul/Paul) attacked the early Christian Church, and it is this that John is talking about in Revelation.
Third, I'm sure you have a warped and twisted RCC apologetic for this, but 1 Timothy 4:1-3:
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth [emphasis added]
This describes the Gnostics, including the Albigensians. Look up a description of them and you'll see the similarity.
Quite clearly labels RCC "no meat on Fridays or you're going to hell" practices of the first half of the 20th century, and the 1139 decree at Lateran that forbid priests to marry completes the picture.
The difference, of course, is that we're not vegetarians, and we don't forbid marriage. Anyone is free to marry. Priests vow to remain celibate, but no one forces them to do so. If someone want to get married, then clearly God hasn't called that person to the priesthood in the Latin rite.
The RCC said eating meat on Fridays was a mortal sin through the first half of the twentieth century. So what does the RCC say happens to a person who went to Hell for eating meat on Fridays who died in 1950, after the mortal sin nature of that offense was lifted? Did they bounce up to purgatory when the pope signed the document?
If someone willfully disobeyed the Church, and her God-given authority, then that person can go to hell for it. If the Church changes a particular law, then one need no longer obey it, since the law is now void. It's just like if the government were to suddenly say that something that had been illegal was now legal. People who had broken the law (in the past) are criminals, but now someone who does the same thing is no longer a criminal.
You're right, he left his wife for another woman.